I Used Nothing But a Fake Social Media App for the Weekend

On Friday, I learned about Binky. It advertises itself as a fake social media app that serves up meaningless, fake posts that addicts can “like” or “repost.” The app serves as a digital pacifier as they try to wean themselves from real social media. As someone who checks Twitter an unhealthy amount of times during the day, I decided to give it a try. I deleted Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Snapchat from my phone for three whole days and took note of how often I felt the urge to open Binky.

“Nothing you do here does anything real,” the Binky tutorial said. “None of it matters. Experience the freedom!”

At this point, I began to think Binky was talking about more than just itself. Who created this app? A nihilist English major who saw a market for post-modern apps? (In a recent interview, Binky creator Dan Kurtz said he created the app out of a craving for mindless scrolling.

“This is what people really want from their smartphones,” Kurtz argues in the article. “Not content in the sense of quips, photos, and videos, but content as the repetitive action of touching and tapping a glass rectangle with purpose and seeing it nod in response.”

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